Sympoiesis by Iris van Herpen Merges Fashion with Living Oceanic Ecosystems

For nearly two decades, the couturier has worked in communion with the primordial rhythm of the organic and the human imperative of the technological. Within Sympoiesis manifests the growing fragility of their interdependence.

To navigate the fracturing symbiosis, Van Herpen turns to the expansive, life-giving force of the ocean as a conceptual gateway, bearing witness to its ecological transformation and transcribing it into cloth via translucently layered textures, liquidised forms, and silhouettes that surge and wane as the tide. Guided by James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, the designer examines the ocean not as a singular ecosystem but as part of a wider biospheric consciousness. “The collection explores how we are one with the ocean, the largest and most important ecosystem on our planet that generates more than half of the oxygen we breathe. “

Seeking to convey not only the ocean’s state of peril but its innate beauty in the collection too, Van Herpen draws upon the freeform movement of Loie Fuller to embody the full spectrum of its forms, from its wild tidal power to its amorphous organisms.The pioneering muse and dancer, who van Herpen has long been inspired by as a trained dancer herself, embraced the unpredictability of fabric in motion, shrouding herself in silk and using bamboo wands to expand the improvised phantasmal shapes she drew with her body. “She seems to be in dialogue with the forces of nature in her performances. In my eyes she was an alchemist of movement, light, and fabric, with which she merged dance into sculpture,” Van Herpen says.

As the show opens with a performance created in collaboration with light artist Nick Verstand, Fuller’s moves are thrown into the future as near-invisible Japanese airfabric becomes a light painting. As if she is leaving her solid body, the voluminous phantom silhouettes radiate organic patterns of light that are activated by the movements of the dancer in real time. “The dancer becomes morphogenic and more-than-human, seeming to shimmer in and out of perception, often being swallowed entirely into this bioluminescent creature,” says Van Herpen. “The show opening is an emotionally charged performance on how we have drained the life out of our oceans. It is a call for protection.”

Sympoiesis draws this thread out in a pioneering collaboration with biodesigner Chris Bellamy - a, first-of-its-kind living look, inhabited by 125 million bioluminescent algae which emit light in response to movement. Grown in sea-water baths over several months within a specialised nutrient gel, the Pyrocystis Lunula algae were moulded into an protective membrane then attentively cared for in conditions to mimic their natural marine home, with humidity, temperature, and circadian rhythm all tuned to their precise needs. The chamber in which the living look is nurtured becomes, therefore, a microcosm of the ocean’s delicate balancing point. Caring for the garment, and for the 125 million Pyrocystis Lunula it contains, requires a symbiotic relationship and redefines the creation traditions entirely, as the garment is cultivated rather than constructed. The unbound energy that run through the collection become not relics of the past but portals into an abundant future.

“This collection is a collaboration with nature itself. In this time of biodiversity loss, biodesign invites us to rethink the way we ‘use’ materials, to visualise a future where all human design is not just inspired by nature, but integrated with it,” says Van Herpen. “It highlights the interdependence between humans and nature, viewing the body not as isolated, but as an ecosystem - where fashion becomes alive, responsive, and deeply connected with the natural world.”